ArchiveApril 2015

By: Metro Canada Published on Wed Apr 29 2015 There’s been good news and bad news for Toronto transit users this week. First, the good news. After a long period of uncertainty, the Finch West LRT project is moving forward, with construction beginning next year. It’s delayed again, sure, but at least it’s happening. The bad news is the Sheppard East LRT project has been once again pushed back. and...

By: Metro Published on Mon Apr 27 2015 After a week in which both the federal and provincial governments unveiled their 2015 budgets, Toronto Mayor John Tory seemed to be in a pretty good mood. “What’s clear is that Toronto has partners at both the federal and provincial level to get transit built in this city,” Tory said in a statement Thursday. Maybe the mayor and I have different ideas about...

By: Metro Published on Fri Apr 24 2015 Now that Mayor John Tory has some city hall experience under his belt, it’s time to ask how he's handling council. To answer that, I’ve resurrected my slightly-famous City Council Scorecard. The Scorecard tracks the results of Toronto City Council votes that I deem newsworthy or important, and then calculates how often the 44 ward councillors have voted...

By: Metro Published on Mon Apr 20 2015 Who’s getting a raw deal from Toronto amalgamation? Well, not the suburbs. Ever since the new City of Toronto was formed in 1998 by rapidly smooshing together five mostly independent municipalities, a lot of residents of the amalgamated city have been convinced they’re getting screwed. I see the attitude reflected most in the frequent refrains from suburban...

By: Metro Published on Fri Apr 17 2015 Moments after sitting through a long, even-handed and quite nerdy technical briefing on the Gardiner Expressway East Environmental Assessment Wednesday afternoon, Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong stood up at a press conference to brush aside much of what he had just learned. “I didn’t get elected to increase congestion. I did not,” Minnan-Wong told reporters...

By: Metro Canada Published on Wed Apr 15 2015 Toronto has endured some long and heated debates about the future of the Gardiner Expressway as people concerned about their already dismal commutes getting worse tend to freak out. But it’s not a topic we can ignore. The entirety of the highway started to crumble years ago. The city has already committed to fixing the expressway west of Jarvis St...